I havnt been into metal all that long...so this is a good chuck of the metal albums i own...though ive heard many, many more....these are all albums ive spent a lot of time with (or soon will). I tried to stay away from multiple albums by an artist, but a few exceptions were made hehe.

Take a look at the Top Album lists of recent years and you'll notice an obvious trend. In 2005 the average rating of the top 25 albums is 8.76. Jump to 2014 and the average among the top 25 has dropped to 8.26. An almost linear decrease is observable for the 10 years in between.

I was curious to see what a Top 100 for 2000-2014 would look like if I factored the votes to account for the 'rating decline'. I hope you find it interesting.

This is a long list of metalcore albums from all over the genre's spectrum, albums I consider to be either exceptionally good, are historically important to the genre, or just are an enjoyable listen regardless.

My intentions with this to provide a good start for people who wish to get to know the genre more, or are just looking for more albums to listen.

List of the albums that surprised me this year (2011). Some of the albums were even more unexpected because it was my first contact with the bands. Others were confirmations.
Oh, how I like good surprises... (ongoing list)

Purely subjective list based on personal preferences for the year, unrelated to mass opinion of an album or a band's abilities (e.g. Trivium, Oranssi Pazuzu) - many albums lined up to listen to so will increase in size. Also, not entirely in order, middle order mainly just an approximation.